Transgenerational maintenance of H3K27me3 heterochromatin is balanced by chromodomain proteins in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract The ability to replicate and pass information to descendants is a fundamental requirement for life. In addition to the DNA-based genetic information, modifications of the DNA or DNA-associated proteins can create patterns of heritable gene regulation. Such epigenetic inheritance allows for adaptation without mutation, but its limits and regulation are incompletely understood. Here we developed a C. elegans system to study the transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of H3K27me3, a conserved histone posttranslational modification associated with gene repression. We find that induced alterations of the genome-wide H3K27me3 landscape and the associated fertility defects persist for many generations in genetically wildtype descendants under selective pressure. We uncover that the inheritance of the altered H3K27me3 landscape is regulated by two chromodomain proteins with antagonizing functions, and provide mechanistic insight into how this molecular memory is initiated and maintained. Our results demonstrate that epigenetic inheritance can act as a mutation-independent, heritable mechanism of adaptation. In Brief Özdemir et al. demonstrate that an altered genomic distribution of the histone modification H3K27me3 can be epigenetically inherited across many generations through the activity of HERI-1/SET-32/MES-4, which is antagonized by CEC-6/PRC2 in C. elegans . Highlights Altered H3K27me3 landscapes can be inherited for at least 15 generations in C. elegans . The chromodomain proteins CEC-6 and HERI-1 have opposite roles in antagonizing or promoting the maintenance of the altered H3K27me3 landscape. H3K23me3 and H3K36me3 replace H3K27me3 to promote the intergenerational and transgenerational inheritance of the altered epigenome.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".